Arianna's first hair cut

So today, I decided to cut Arianna's bangs. She doesn't like ponytails. Her bangs were poking her eyes and it irritates her. (fyi: We have daddy's permission. Well, daddy was the one who wanted it to be cut anyway).

Look how long her bangs were

Her bangs are not poking her eyes anymore.. =)

Courtesy of Mommy.

I love you baby Arianna.

Double Bs (Beef Broccoli)

I kept asking my husband if he liked the beef and broccoli I made for dinner. And he said "YES". I couldn't believe it! LOL. I asked him about 6 times and he told me that his mom would like it. =)
So here's how I cooked it. I tried my best to take notes and measure everything.

Beef and Broccoli

3/4-1 lb sirloin beef , thinly sliced across the grain
fresh broccoli
1- julienne cut carrot
2 cloves of garlic minced
cooking oil

Marinade:
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp chinese cooking wine
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp cornstarch

sauce:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
about 1/4 cup beef stock
cornstarch diluted in water

Marinate the beef with the marinade ingredients. Make sure all the sliced beef are coated. Marinate for 15-30 minutes. Mix together the ingredients for the sauce except for the diluted cornstarch.
Heat the frying pan and put about 3 tbsp of oil. Fry the beef and make sure all the beef are laying flat on the surface of the frying pan. Fry it 1 minute on each side. Remove the beef and drain it on paper towels. Discard all the liquid left in the pan. Add 2 tbsp of oil. Sautee garlic. (be careful not to burn the garlic). Add broccoli and carrots.Stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add the beef stock, cover and let the vegetables cook for about a 2 minutes. Add the sauce mixture in the middle f the frying pan, then the diluted cornstarch. Stir until the sauce is thickened. Serve over steamed rice.

This is how I egg roll

I was feeling motivated to cook dinner today. All morning, I was deciding what we're going to eat for dinner. For those who don't know me, I am very indecisive. I need a lot of time to think. LOL. I was about to give up and will just order pizza but then I was really motivated.

So about 1 pm, I have decided that we will have egg rolls, beef and broccoli and steamed rice for dinner. Too easy to say but it's a lot of work. Well, when Arianna woke up from her nap, I dragged her with me to the store to buy all the ingredients I needed.

So for the egg roll you will need:

Coleslaw mix. (the ones with green cabbage and carrots only). I didn't buy a whole green cabbage because I don't wanna cut it when I get home. But the package didn't have enough carrots so I julienne cut one carrot and add it to the cloeslaw mix. Call me lazy! haha! P.S. you're just gonna need about half or 3/4 of the package

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onions, diced
I/2 lb ground pork
egg roll wrappers (I didn't like the brand I bought (nasoya egg roll wraps.). I bought it just try a different wrapper. It didn't turned out how I wanted it to be. I should be loyal to my old lumpia wrappers).
about 1/4 cup of beef or chicken stock.
salt and pepper to taste
peanut or canola or vegetable oil

Heat the pan. Put oil and when it's hot, sautee garlic and onions. Add the ground pork til it's brown. Drain it on paper towels. Put the coleslaw mix in the pan and the stock. Stir and put back the ground pork in the pan. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook it til its alil bit tender. You don't want the vegetable to be soggy. Place the egg roll filling in a bowl and let it cool. Once it cooled down, wrap it in egg roll wrapper. Usually, when you buy an egg roll wrapper, there's a procedure in the back of the wrapper on how to wrap an egg roll. =)

Then fry them. I used peanut oil but you can also use canola or vegatable oil.

I also made a homemade sweet and sour sauce to go along with the egg rolls. When we went to the store, they didn't have the brand of sweet and sour sauce I like so I decided to make my own.

Sweet and sour sauce:

pineapple juice
pineapple chunks
ketchup
chopped green bell peppers
sugar to taste
Cornstach diluted in water

Put them altogether in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil. Your going to put the diluted conrstarch last to thickened the sauce.

Leche Flan

Flan is known as Leche Flan in the Philippines. My mom usually just makes leche flan during the holidays. Maybe because we only had a small portable oven so it's kinda hard to make leche flan. Well, I tried to make it years ago because my husband hasn't had it before. Unfortunately, my husband didn't like it because it tasted like crap so he decided to make it. He made his own recipe. I was surprise it turned out really good. By the way, my husband like to call it flan instead of "leche flan". haha!

Flan

You will need:
1cup brown sugar
2 whole eggs
6 egg yolks
1 can evaporated milk
1 can condensed milk
1 tbsp "real" vanilla extract

6-7 ramekins
sieve/strainer

Pre-heat oven 325 degrees F

in a saucepan dissolve brown sugar until the sugar has thickened without stirring on low heat. (You have to watch it so u know your not burning the sugar).
Pour the carmelized sugar into ramekins. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat 2 whole eggs and 6 egg yolksuntil well blended.
Strain the egg mixture.
Add the evaporated milk, condensed milk and vanilla. Mix with spoon until well blended.
Pour the custard mixture into the ramekins.
Place the ramekins in a large pan half filled with water.
Bake for approximately 1 hour.
Remove ramekins and place them on cooling rack.
When they cooled down, put them in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or until you are ready to eat it.
To remove the flan from the ramekin, run a knife on the sides of the flan. Put a plate over it and turn it over.

ENJOY!

Horchata

Making horchata (rice milk) is alot of work for me but it is all worth it. I really hope you would understand the procedure I wrote. My husband is sleeping right now so I can't ask him if I wrote the procedure right. (grammar wise)

You will need:
1 cup- long grain rice
8 cups of water
1- 12 oz. can evaporated milk ( I suggest to put 6 oz. of evap first so u can add more if you want more milk)
2 sticks of cinnamon sticks
3/4-1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)
ground cinnamon
iced cubes
strainer/seive
a pitcher
large bowl or another pitcher
cheesecloth
and lots of patience straining the rice. lol

Procedure:
1. Soak long grain rice in water overnight.
2. Discard the water.
3. Put the rice in a blender with 4 cups of water then blend it.
4. Using a strainer/sieve, slowly strain the mixture to a large bowl.
5. Put the rice that u strained back in the blender then put the other 4 cups of water in. Blend.
6. do #4.
7. Strain again the mixture in the pitcher using the cheesecloth.
8. Place the sugar, evaporated milk, cinnamon sticks and vanilla in the pitcher and stir well.
9. Pour the horchata over iced cubes and a generous ground cinnamon.
10. Enjoy drinking it.

Well, the very first time I had horchata when I was working at a mexican restaurant. The cook showed me how to make it fresh. Of course he was eyeballing the ingredients. So grateful they hired me to work there eventhough I didn't have any experince waitressing at that time. They even showed me how to cook mexican rice. Never tried making it but if I am motivated enough, I will try to make it in a couple of days or so.

My blogspot address for the nth time

Last night, we had fun visiting our friends in Marysville. We got home around 11pm , everyone was tired but me. My husband and baby Arianna slept right away when we got home and I was just laying on bed and couldn't sleep. So I decided to think of what name I should change my blog address to, instead of counting sheep.  I came up with "mydiligentmoments.blogspot.com". I got up from the bed , went on the computer and changed it.

When my husband came home from work today, I told him about my blog. He looked at me and said "Really? You named your blog like that?"
Me: "Why? Does it sound stupid?"
husband: "yes"
me: "now, i feel embarrass because i put it on facebook."

We just laughed and laughed and laughed..... I am just glad my husband told me that it sounded stupid. No one would have told me but him. =)

Anyhow, after watching my one of favorite shows, I put Arianna to bed so I can think of a better address for my blog. So this is what I came up with.

http://survivingthequixoticlife.blogspot.com/

Not bad huh? I really think it's WAY BETTER than "mydiligentmoments". HAHAHAHA!I think I changed my blog address for like 6 times already. I'm done changing my blog address. Now I am moving on to rearraging my layouts and chaning the template. Crossing my fingers!

Didn't last

Arianna and I made it to church today. We were not late. We were actually 5 minutes early before the sacrament meeting started and I am proud of it. haha! We are usually late and I have too many reasons to give you like, "didn't wake up early", "set the alarm on pm instead of am", and the list goes on.

We usually sit at the back of the congregation because the little one wants to say hi to everybody. What I mean about that is, she will go to you, looking all nice and stuff but after a few seconds she will grab something from you like a paper or your hymnbook, or if you have kids with books or toys, she will grab those and take off. LOL.  I always use 4 chairs for the 2 of us. I use the 2 chairs to block the 2 ends so Arianna won't get out. But today, she was a monkey. She tried to crawl underneath the chair, didn't work so she climbed and girl, she MADE it on top of the chair and went down like a lightning. She was fast! The chairs don't work anymore so we basically just spent the whole sacrament meeting in the hallway. Thank goodness for hallway speakers! I actually got to hear the first speaker.

Arianna LOVES to walk in the hallway, and taps the glass entrance door. She's learning how to run. She fell on her face today bumped her lip on the floor, (there's a lil blood), cried for lil bit then run again. I wonder how the floor taste like? lol.

So today, we DIDN'T LAST til the the church meetings ended. We left an hour and a half early. I wanted to stay so I could attend the classes specially the relief society. I miss going there. We have 3 more months til Arianna goes in the nursery.

Arianna is a handful. There's no lie about that but I still love her a lot, an "infinite love". She does funny little things that makes me laugh and I thank her for that. I don't blame her if mommy doesn't go to the classes. It's not her fault. If mommy really wants to stay, she can. Don't forget the saying: "if there's a will, there's a way".

Well, we'll see if that saying will work next Sunday. ;D